Not Eden Hazard, Spanish media predicts this player to be the new boss at Real Madrid

Gareth Bale will be the man to lead Real Madrid’s challenge next season, reveals Spanish daily AS

Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Juventus has left a substantial void in Los Blancos’ attack

Leading Spanish publication AS has exclusively revealed that Gareth Bale will be the man to lead Real Madrid’s challenge in the upcoming season after Cristiano Ronaldo’s recent departure to Juventus. Chelsea‘s Eden Hazard has been touted as a possible replacement for the Portuguese superstar but president Florentino Perez views Bale as the axis of his new project.

Bale the best bet to lead Real Madrid in every sense

Also, the realization that signing Neymar or Kylian Mbappe would be impossible has also tilted the scales in Bale’s favour. Further, the Welshman is still a viable prospect in economic terms and is sponsored by apparel giants Adidas. Based on a recent report in The Guardian, Bale is the player who earns the most advertising revenues (around €40 million a year) after Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

While he is contracted to pocket €26 million per campaign from Adidas until 2020, Bale is also backed by several other big-ticket brands like BT, Nissan, FootLocker and EA Sports. His closest competitor as the new Santiago Bernabeu lynchpin at this stage is Eden Hazard, who also features in the list of top ten earners but is someway behind Bale. He has contracts with Adidas’ rival Nike, Topps, Lotus Bakeries, Sina Sports and EA Sports.

The report in AS also suggests that Ronaldo’s move to Turin has resulted in an unexpected turn of events in Bale’s intentions. After the Champions League final in Kiev against Liverpool where he was the quintessential hero of the night, Bale had said: “Maybe I’ll stay or maybe I’ll not. I have to talk to my agent about this. But what is clear is that I need more minutes on the pitch.”

Bale open to Real Madrid stay after Ronaldo and Zidane’s departure

However, his tone was radically different from the one used in Kiev when he opened up on the matter at the end of his holidays. “I said that because in Kiev I was frustrated at not starting the match,” Bale said.

After the Champions League triumph in May, a lot of things have changed at Real Madrid over the course of last two months. Talisman Cristiano Ronaldo is now at Juve, Zinedine Zidane has left his role as manager to be replaced by Julen Lopetegui and marquee targets like Neymar and Mbappe are proving too difficult to bring in. This might just be the time when the white horizon reopens for Gareth Bale, five summers after he joined the club from Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.